Search engine optimisation

Optimisation is a much bandied about word. In reality search optimisation is a way of emulating how an "expert" website would structure their website, images, video and content. That is it.

Google has created a set of rules (algorithm) that maps out what rules these "expert resources would adhere to. It is simply a matter of translating a client's information into a structure that follows these criteria.

Unfortunately these rules change.

Instead of second guessing Google Benedict^? have developed their own set of rules using websites that contain content that we know contain expert data (we wrote them) and are styled and designed exactly as we would have them, not an over optimised keyword stuffed page in sight.

To get a feel of how we work keep reading below and if you would like Benedict^? to demonstrate our skills then please call 020 8405 6418; we are always happy to spend 20 minutes hearing about your challenges.

A five year old child is more complex linguistically than Google

Many people seem to believe that optimised content is somehow a black art and that SEOs cast some sort of spell over the words which magically changes them into some sort of traffic gathering magnet.

They see optimisation as complex, a science, a law of average, keyword densities, word positioning, interlinking structures, keyword rich content.... and so on.

'Penguin' (think Google update) has moved towards taking a lot of the maths out of optimisation and replaced science with art. Google’s algorithm is working towards being human.

Google’s algorithm is simply trying to be human. By being human it can (hopefully) see which websites have content that is both expert and engaging and which are just noise or rewritten pages. However, there is still a long way to go.

For example, Google instigated a program where 400 students were given the task of rating several thousand websites, so that Google could make changes to their algorithm to not only improve their search results, but also to remove content that is there for contents sake.

They were looking for advanced methods to rank websites other than using a plain formula.

Unfortunately, using humans is a clear sign that computers are insufficiently developed to cope with advanced linguistics.

It is interesting that Google have been recruiting linguists since 2008 in an attempt to develop the complexities of their algorithm (the set of rules that grade or rate a website).

In a sense if Sergey Brin (founder of Google) had spent more time talking to his five year old, (also called Ben), he might not have bothered with expensive teams of language experts.

The development of search engine optimisation and Google's changes and improvements in its algorithm (think Penguin) can be paralleled with how a child learns a language, the results of which form the basis of the optimisation techniques we use at Benedict^? and how that work reflects in the content plans we create within clients' strategies.

Getting the internet, one word at a time. Google 1998

Similar to early search engines, a 12 month old baby can understand communication in single words. They practise through having conversations around a single subject not understanding the correlation for example between eye and mouth. There is no sentence structure.

In the late 1990s, optimisation was about quantity. Whichever website mentions “SEO” the most on the most pages ranked first. When "I (Ben Sykes) wrote my first piece of code, it was a simplistic script that could order documents by matching words from a list and categorising them accordingly. "

One advantage that computers have over a child is that a computer can learn an infinite number of words in one go! However, a child understands pitch and voice tone in order to change a request for example "door" into a command “DOOR”. The only way computers can understand tone is through words (now, immediately etc.). This why texters use CAPITALS to indicate shouting.

12-24 month old children also understand context; they can gesture, stand, wave goodbye etc.

Websites rely on images and video to add context to a paragraph. A picture is worth a thousand words, is not actually true in optimisation. However, you can begin to see that images, their name and possible content within (OCR) etc. could play an important part. You might notice that many of the images contained in this site contain words.

Two words then a complete sentence... Google 2003

At 18-24 months, a child begins to combine words and improves on voice tone and pitch, moving on to more complex sentences at about 24 months. Google took five years to reach this stage: most children reach it in 365 days.

Children versus Google... 2017/8

By three to four a child has a good understanding of how a language forms words (morphology) and sentences (syntax). A child further improves on using language appropriately (pragmatics). Children can uses consonants in the beginning, middle, and ends of words, recognise verb endings in context and use language to answer questions.

Whilst Google undoubtedly has a much larger word source, (their algorithm uses dictionaries similar to Microsoft's word's) and can identity words that have similar meanings (synonyms) and the opposite meanings (antonyms), Google struggles to clarify meaning.

The much bandied about phrase "semantic search" is a little misleading when applied to Google in so far as there are now half a dozen "semantic search engines!", Sensebot being our favourite.

Making sense of words

For example a five year old child knows that "I love London" is the same as "I (heart shape) London." A computer does not. Unfortunately there are so many examples like this where the context is one thing and the actual meaning is something else that programming a computer to understand all of these anomalies in the English language nearly impossible.

Perhaps it has to be remembered that, Google is one of the cleverest software companies in the World, so perhaps we speak to soon.

SO Where are we?

What we have left is a search engine that is vastly superior to Bing et al, and an algorithmic development project that makes leaps and bounds in all the right directions.

What that means for your site is that if you are an authority or an expert on what you sell and you create content that reflects this knowledge and enthusiasm, then Google will reward you with unpaid search traffic to sell your products.

More on optimising your website using Google Code alternatively you maybe interested in data optimisation or ecommerce optimisation.